Alternative Minimum Tax Archive

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA)[1] , which President Obama signed into law last night, makes permanent 82 percent of President Bush’s tax cuts.
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and Congressional Budget Office estimate that making permanent all of the Bush tax cuts would have cost $3.4 trillion over 2013-2022.[2]
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Governor Mitt Romney’s proposals to cap total federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and boost defense spending to 4 percent of GDP would require very large cuts in other programs, both entitlements and discretionary programs.
This update of an earlier analysis is based on updated economic and budget …

Republican legislation that was introduced in the Senate by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and in the House by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) would establish requirements for tax-reform legislation that could generate higher deficits and substantially shift tax burdens …

This report has been superseded by a new version, dated September 24, 2012, that reflects updated data and other information. Click to view the new analysis.
Governor Mitt Romney’s proposals to cap total federal spending, boost defense spending, cut taxes, and balance the budget would require extraordinarily large cuts in other programs, both …

Even as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget would impose trillions of dollars in spending cuts, at least 62 percent of which would come from low-income programs,[1] it would enact new tax cuts that would provide huge windfalls to households at the top of the income scale. New analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) …

Despite its massive spending cuts, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget (which the House is considering this week) would still have a deficit of $287 billion in fiscal year 2022. And the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it wouldn’t produce a surplus until 2040.
Chairman Ryan disagrees, saying in …

Our new report shows that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s tax plan would provide $265,000-a-year tax cuts to the nation’s highest-income households. Here’s an excerpt:
Even as House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget would impose trillions of dollars in spending cuts, 62 percent of which would come from …

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan recently summarized his new tax proposal this way:
[W]e’re saying get rid of all the special interest loopholes and tax shelters that are disproportionately used by those higher income earners, get rid of those tax shelters, so you can lower tax rates for everybody, and make us better wired for economic growth and job creation.
Chairman Ryan has also said that most tax-expenditure benefits go to high-income people.
The lead tax chart in Chairman Ryan’s budget document seems to support his statement, suggesting that the tax code includes a series of egregious loopholes (or “tax expenditures”) that mostly flow to very rich individuals. It gives the impression that we can easily eliminate tax …

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan recently summarized his new tax proposal this way:
[W]e’re saying get rid of all the special interest loopholes and tax shelters that are disproportionately used by those higher income earners, get rid of those tax shelters, so you can lower tax rates for everybody, and make us better wired for economic growth and job creation.
Chairman Ryan has also said that most tax-expenditure benefits go to high-income people. The lead tax chart in Chairman Ryan’s budget …

Despite warning that the nation faces the “perils of debt,” House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan introduced a budget on March 20 whose tax proposals would be extremely costly and would disproportionately favor the nation’s highest-income households and large corporations.[1] His budget would cut the top …

We’ve issued a statement from Robert Greenstein on the budget from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Here’s the opening:
The new Ryan budget is a remarkable document — one that, for most of the past half-century, would have been outside the bounds of mainstream discussion due to its extreme nature. In essence, this budget is …

The new Ryan budget is a remarkable document — one that, for most of the past half-century, would have been outside the bounds of mainstream discussion due to its extreme nature. In essence, this budget is Robin Hood in reverse — on steroids. It would likely produce the largest redistribution of income from the bottom to the top in modern U.S.…

Unveiling his tax plan on February 22, Governor Romney's campaign said it would: 1) make permanent President Bush's tax cuts (but not those enacted under President Obama, which are scheduled to expire at the same time and which expanded several refundable tax credits for low- and middle-income families); 2) then cut individual …

Mr. Chairman, Senator Hatch, and members of the committee, I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today.
The federal budget is on an unsustainable path. If we continue current policies — including a further extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and AMT relief — deficits will remain high throughout the …

The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirm what we already knew: the federal budget is on an unsustainable path. [1] If we continue current policies — including a further extension of the Bush tax cuts, which policymakers recently extended through 2012 — deficits will remain …

The new deficit reduction plan that the co-chairs of the President’s Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Republican Senator Alan Simpson — presented today to commission members contains a number of relatively modest …

The Senate today passed a version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (H.R. 1) that makes a number of changes in the House-passed bill. Contrary to their proponents' claim, these changes — in Senate committees and on the floor last week, as well as by a group of Senators led by Ben Nelson and Susan Collins — have reduced …

In a November 8 press release, Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Jim McCrery claimed that new estimates from the nonpartisan, highly respected Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) show that Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel’s recently-introduced tax reform bill would raise taxes on 113 million households.[1] The claim is false; the …

President Bush continues to urge that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 be made permanent. Despite the severe long-term budget shortfalls the nation faces, the Administration has not proposed measures to offset the cost of extending these tax cuts. Nor has it proposed measures to pay for extending relief from the …

Administration’s fiscal year 2009 budget released on February 4 did not fully reflect the Bush Administration’s policies. While claiming to reach a surplus of $48 billion by 2012, the budget projections omitted the costs of two policies central to the Administration.
The Administration says it is committed …

Republican congressional leaders have sharply attacked House Ways and Means Chairman Rangel’s proposal to replace the Alternative Minimum Tax with a tax surcharge for very-high-income households as a massive tax increase that would seriously damage, even “doom,” the economy. In fact, however, the Rangel plan …

Last fall, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel introduced major tax legislation (H.R. 3970) that would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax and finance repeal by imposing an income tax surcharge on high-income households. The package also includes expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, refundable Child …

The President’s budget would provide more tax cuts heavily skewed to the most well-off while cutting vital services for low- and moderate-income Americans, generating large deficits, and increasing the strain on states already confronting budget problems as a result of the economic downturn. The budget …

Several weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed legislation that would provide Alternative Minimum Tax relief for 2007, extend other expiring tax provisions, and offset the cost with various revenue-raising measures. Some have argued that Congress should instead waive its Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) rules and deficit finance the cost of the AMT package. …

Various Administration officials, senators, and House members are urging Congress to waive its Pay-As-You-Go rules and deficit-finance the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) “patch.” The AMT’s explosive growth, they argue, was unanticipated and unintended, and so measures to prevent that growth should not have to be paid for. Even if the AMT’s growth were unanticipated, …

Later this week, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on legislation that would “patch” the Alternative Minimum Tax for 2007 (H.R. 3996). This analysis highlights three praiseworthy features of the tax package, which was adopted by the Ways and Means Committee November 1.
The cost of the package is fully offset. Its adoption by the …

In January the House of Representatives reinstated “Pay-As-You-Go” (PAYGO) budgeting rules, and in May the Senate followed suit. PAYGO requires Congress to offset the cost of any legislation that increases entitlement spending or reduces revenues. As a CBPP analysis released today explains, Congress to date has complied with the PAYGO rules.[1] Both houses of …

The Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures of the House Ways and Means Committee recently held hearings on the Alternative Minimum Tax, and Subcommittee Chairman Richard Neal has said he is developing a proposal for permanent, revenue-neutral AMT reform. According to news accounts, the proposal will take the form of an AMT …

This week, the House of Representatives will consider the budget resolution that the House Budget Committee approved March 22. The House Budget Committee plan adheres to the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) budget rules that have been in force in the House since January. These rules require that the cost of any legislation that increases entitlement spending or reduces revenue be offset. …

The President’s budget estimates that extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts would cost $1.7 trillion over the next decade (2008-2017). (A figure of $1.6 trillion has been cited by a number of media outlets, but this number leaves out the increased outlays that will result from extending the refundable tax credit expansions enacted in 2001; the Administration’s estimate of the …

The Alternative Minimum Tax was created in 1969 to ensure that the highest-income households could not exploit loopholes, exclusions, and deductions to avoid paying any federal income tax. The AMT acts as a stop-gap tax system, with taxpayers owing their regular income tax or AMT liability, whichever is higher.
Because …

As is increasingly well known, a growing number of taxpayers will become subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax over the next ten years if relief from the tax (which has been provided by Congress on a year-to-year basis) is not extended. A growing fraction of those affected by the AMT will be middle- or upper-middle class families.
The Urban …

In the early morning of May 18, the House passed a budget plan (or “budget resolution”) for fiscal year 2007. In a separate vote later that day, the Housed “deemed” that the Congress has given final approval to the plan. As a result of this “deemer,” the House budget plan is now …

Some Members of Congress — including the Chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Majority Leader, and four other Finance Committee members — introduced legislation in late May that would repeal the individual Alternative Minimum Tax. The legislation does not include …